


Heat

by Jinmukang



Series: Whumptober 2020 [14]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Robin: Son of Batman (Comics)
Genre: Heat Stroke, Kidnapping, Panic Attacks, Whumptober 2020, heat exhaustion, no.24
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27001750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinmukang/pseuds/Jinmukang
Summary: A rare heat wave hits Gotham and Damian finds himself waking up inside a locked trunk of a car.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946413
Comments: 19
Kudos: 115
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Heat

**Author's Note:**

> eyyyyy *finger guns*
> 
> enjoy

When Damian wakes up, he can't breathe. 

Partly because of the uncomfortable position he's rag dolled into, mostly because there's blood pooling the inside of his shattered nose and dripping down his lips. 

He gags on the taste and resist verbalizing the pain his entire face is in. He tries to maneuver his hands to his face to at least wipe the trail of blood off from his lips, but his arms stay pinned behind his back with the tell-tale sound of metallic links. 

He's handcuffed. 

Immediately, he's in red alert. He opens his eyes, ignoring the tears clouding his vision, and tries to get a handle on his situation. 

Robin costume. Cape, belt, boots, and gloves are missing. The space he's stuffed into is small, barely large enough for him to even think about stretching his legs. The surface beneath his cheek is rough, but in a soft way. Small, carpet like bristles that look to be made of fine plastic. The walls around him though are metal and shaped oddly. The ceiling cascading downwards towards a flat wall with an obvious seam where it would... open. 

A car. He's in the trunk of a car. 

And it's  _ hot _ . 

The more awake he becomes, the more he can feel the uncomfortable layer of sweat that seems to coat every inch of his body. The car doesn't seem to be moving, and he doesn't hear any noises. There's a rare heatwave going through Gotham right now, being as it's the middle of summer and Gotham has one or two hot days in a year, as shocking as that is. Nothing like the deserts Damian grew up at, but enough to definitely make it an issue if an animal or small child were to be left inside a car while the irresponsible guardian went inside a store to shop.

He tests the chain between his hands, then wiggles his legs and strains against the walls of the trunk until he eventually manages to get his hands down and around his body so they're in front of his chest. However, his wrists now ache where the edges of the metal cuffs had dug into his skin. His shoulders hurt too, which is a clue to how long he's been restrained like this. He brings his cuffed hands to his face to wipe the blood over his mouth so he can more better breathe air in the muggy, hot trunk without constantly swallowing his own blood. Then, ignoring the stain of red against the back of his hands, he runs his fingers along the seam of the trunk’s opening. He doesn't find a latch anywhere to open if from the inside, so he bring his attention towards the piston near the back corner of the small space that would, theoretically, bend and straighten whenever the compartment needed to be manipulated.

The piston is definitely electronically controlled, and considering how there's no spot where the taillights  _ should _ be poking into the space he's stuffed in, it's a definite newer car. There won't be any easy forcing his way out.

Huffing, he goes across the seam again, impatience beginning to make his movements a bit agitated and sporadic. It's hard to breathe, and for a moment he wonders if carbon monoxide poisoning is a thing he should worry about, but then he remembers how hot he feels, how much he's sweating. 

If he stays in here, what would kill him first? Suffocation? Or a heatstroke?

He needs to get out. Whoever put him in this trunk, they didn't think about his survival. A parked car left outside can be a death trap for anyone stuck inside.

He can already feel symptoms of heat cramps. He's sweating, his muscles are beginning to ache for more reasons than the tight position he's in, and his head hurts for more reasons than the broken nose. 

Even though the space is small, he's able to slowly bend himself so his feet are by the trunks opening. His neck bends awkwardly with the position, but he ignores it in favor of survival. He kicks, his bare feet hitting roughly on the metal, hot ceiling. The walls around him make a dull thunk, but nothing budges. 

It feels like he's in an oven. In a brazen bull. He's being + _ baked _ alive.

He wipes more blood from his lips, then brushes his arm across his forehead, bringing drops of sweat with it. He takes a deep breath and kicks again. It's a poor angle, and there's hardly any support without his boots. Nothing budges and Damian slams his fist against the scratchy floor in displeasure. 

"Come  _ on _ ," Damian growls. He turns to try kicking the opposite direction, his breath beginning to leave his lips in small panting breaths. If he can't kick the trunk open, he'll try breaking through to the backseats of the car.

He lashes out at that, his head now pressed against hot metal, until his lungs begin to shutter and he's left to go limp for a few moments. Just to catch his breath. He's so  _ hot _ . How long has he been trapped in here? No matter how hard he kicks, nothing budges anywhere. Now his ankles hurt. His everything hurts. 

His heart is beating faster than a hummingbird's wings. He can't seem to catch his breath. In the dark of the trunk, his vision spins. 

He's going to die in here if he doesn't get out soon.

He doesn't want to die in here. 

He turns his focus towards the cuffs on his hands to avoid panicking about the tight, suffocating space around him. He's going to be fine. He'll find a way out of this. He just needs to get his hands free. 

He'll feel better if his hands are free. 

He finds quickly that the cuffs were not built for children. Wrapped around Damian's thin wrists are cuffs meant for adults, latched in an eye-ball shape instead of the circle it should be in. It should be easy to slip. He just needs… he just needs to catch his breath. 

He can't catch his breath. He tugs on the cuffs anyway, and immediately he becomes frustrated when they go nowhere. It's like he's watching his hands from someone else's point of view, trying to control his motions with a toy's remote. 

The cuffs aren't coming off. Why aren't they coming off? It's so hot. He's sweating. How long has he been in here? He hits the wall and growls. 

Why is he so panicked? He can't have been in here long enough to already be this far into heat exhaustion. It doesn't get  _ that _ hot in Gotham. Even on the sunny days. 

It's so  _ hot _ . 

He needs to calm down, but his heart won't stop beating. His head is becoming a woozy wardrum; pounding, yet muffled and far away. Light-headed. Nauseous. He's tired, but he can't fall asleep again. He has to stay awake and get out because if he falls asleep here he'll  _ die _ . 

It's a miracle he woke up in time to die in the first place. 

He doesn't want to die. Not again. 

And thinking of death immediately has him thinking of heat, fire,  _ Hell _ . 

Eleven years old. He must have been the youngest person to ever enter that place. It's been years, but he still gets nightmares. 

He doesn't want to go back. He thinks he's better now, but he doesn't want to risk it. He doesn't want to meet his father's parents yet. He doesn't want to meet Grayson's. Or the Drake's, or Jason's mother, or anyone. He wants to keep going, become a  _ good _ person. 

He just wants out of the car. 

He reaches his still cuffed hands to his mouth, wiping blood, wanting to cry at the pain his nose is in, pulsing with each pound in his skull, muffling the whimpers his traitorous mouth is beginning to make. 

He weakly kicks at the walls around him again, but they don't budge, and he thinks about how much he wants to go back to the manor and lay out in the damp grass. He thinks of Richard, and maybe a little of the others as well. He's scared. He's often thought about the ways he'll die. He grew up with a sword in his hands being one of the first things he remembers, of  _ course _ he's thought about his inevitable death, even if, at the time, he was raised to believe he would succeed his grandfather and become immortal himself. Becoming immortal doesn't mean disregarding mortal fears, it means  _ overcoming _ them. 

He's always thought he'd die in a grand battle… and in a way he did. But there are always other ways to die. Explosions. Fallings. Shortcomings. Assassination. Drowning. Torture. And he's always known the heat of a desert could kill you as easy as blinking an eye. But he's never thought he would die as pathetically as this.

He pounds against his cage. "Let me out!" He yells. 

Then he quickly closes his mouth. His lower lip makes a trembling motion, and he's afraid of what that means. 

It's hot. It's really hot. How much time has passed? Since some mysterious person broke his nose, handcuffed him, then stuffed him in a car to overheat to death?

He can't feel his heart anymore. He brings his fingers to his jaw and tries to find his pulse, but holding his arms up to his face takes too much energy. 

"Let me out," Damian mumbles. Sniffs. He's tired. He closes his eyes. 

Maybe he just… needs a nap. Everything will make sense after a nap. 

It's really hot. 

And then... It's not. A brush of cool air washes over him, making his eyes open with shock as light immediately begins to flood the compartment he's stuffed inside. 

Weak as a kitten, he turns his head to see none other than the Signal looking down at him with shock opening his lips. "Holy crap," he whispers. 

Damian immediately begins to try and sit up, but a rush of lightheadedness attacks his entire body, making him fall back down and do nothing but blink for a few minutes as Duke begins to drag Damian out of the car and onto the asphalt. Damian can immediately tell that he's not in Gotham, judging by the lack of buildings anywhere. The weeds brushing the side of the road. 

"We need to get him to a hospital," Damian hears Duke say. He doesn't wonder long who he says it to, because Stephanie soon enters his field of vision by sitting down besides his face to lay her hand on his forehead. He scowls at her, and she laughs, brushing her fingers down to wipe under his eyes.

She better have been wiping blood away or something. Damian would die of embarrassment if she had just wiped away tears.

"Let's get'cha somewhere safe," Steph says softly as Duke picks the locks of the cuffs. "We found you. It's going to be okay now."

Damian's too tired and thirsty and relieved to open his mouth and reply, so he simply hums and does his best to move his own body as Duke and Stephanie slowly lift him to his feet. Before they climb into Duke's bike, Damian glances back at the car he had been previously trapped in. Stephanie notices and growls ever so slightly. "They took you during patrol and drove all the way out here before the gas ran out. We think they went further down the interstate to hitchhike out of state. Dick's gonna get on it once we tell him you're safe."

Safe. He's safe now. Not trapped in an overheating car. 

He nods against Duke's back as he revs the engine. Soon enough, the cold wind is blowing through Damian's scalp as they drive back to Gotham. As of right now, Damian's sure that this is the best feeling in the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> and then dick beat dami's kidnappers to a bloody pulp then rushed back to the hospital to cuddle damian to death.
> 
> thanks for reading! 
> 
> pst. pst come closer. no... not that close. back six feet please. anyway, i wanted to tell you that comments are much appreciated. ikr? crazy.


End file.
